Where do you store your downloads?

[Dave2002]

Although finding storage space (shelf space) for CDs, DVDs and Blu Rays may present problems, problems do not necessarily go away with downloads.

I'm currently downloading several sets recently purchased from Presto. The Kuchar set is going to take up 3.7 Gbytes, while the Alkan set will be 3.1 Gbytes.
At present this machine has over 500 Gbytes of spare space - which I suspect is an under estimate which will sort itself out when MacOS catches up with some large deletions, but even so the immediate download will take up almost 8 Gbytes. If I did this every day it would take about 62 days to completely fill the drive.

Further, I do have more than the current downloads to process.

So my question is really - "are people ignoring the constraints of file store requirements for downloads, and hoping that crashes will never happen, or are they allocating separate storage devices for downloads?"

We may have "solved" one storage problem (space for CDs etc.) and bounced ourselves into another.

[Roslynmuse]

External hard-drive; memory sticks; burn to CD (!!!)

Some people use clouds - I don't, or at least haven't yet. Trust...

[Bryn]

External hard-drive; memory sticks; burn to CD (!!!)

Some people use clouds - I don't, or at least haven't yet. Trust...

Ditto, plus to DVD-R, BD-R, SSD . . . Basically wherever convenient, either for immediate playback or safe long-term storage (at least two copies on different media). I don't use third-party cloud storage.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I only ever buy them when no CD is available. Then I burn a CD. So no space is saved, but I can play the disc almost anywhere.

[Bryn]

I only ever buy them when no CD is available. Then I burn a CD. So no space is saved, but I can play the disc almost anywhere.

Ah, just as one can downloads then, though I do find it difficult to play CDs on my smartphone or pocket solid-state media player.

I still buy many CDs, however, though mainly large boxed sets or recordings not available as downloads or streaming in at least CD quality.

[cloughie]

I only ever buy them when no CD is available. Then I burn a CD. So no space is saved, but I can play the disc almost anywhere.

Either when no CD is available or the cost is very much lower. I also burn to CD, occasionally use memory sticks in car and my kitchen Yamaha system can play them, though file searching is a faff. Burning also allows choice of couplings and compilations. I won’t annoy anyone by saying I curate them! Though I’ll own up to them having been cut-rated.
The only space-saving is storing some of them on the spindles I have bulk bought the discs!

[gurnemanz]

I have a few thousand CDs and storage space is overflowing so I now mainly download FLAC or Mp3 to laptop. My tuner-streamer can zap into these via WiFi network or via USB sticks plugged into it. Also all are on a hard drive - for backup security rather than as a playing source.

When Microsoft discontinued Office 2010 last October I reluctantly moved to Office 365 because 2010 was perfectly fine by me. It costs you annually but there some useful upgrades and you do get a "free" terabyte of cloud storage via OneDrive. I had not used the cloud much before but I have also put all downloaded music on there as well, with photos, docs etc. I have discovered that I can also cast music and photos from Onedrive and somewhat to my own surprise I now find myself to be a bit of a cloud fan. All bases covered ....?

[johnb]

I use a HP Microserver as a glorified 4 bay NAS. It also runs the "Squeezebox" Logitech Media Server and all my music (downloads, ripped CDs, iPlayer, Qobuz, etc) streams from there.

I also have a second HP Microserver elsewhere in the house which I periodically use to mirror data on the main Microserver.

(I bought these some years ago when HP had frequent very substantial cash back offers.)

[Richard Barrett]

I have a dedicated hard drive on which I keep my downloaded recordings, with a folder for each composer in which I also keep any digitised scores of that composer if I have them. I also have a folder in my iCloud storage which accommodates new downloads before they get organised and filed away on the hard drive, although actually I do more streaming than downloading these days, and I haven't plugged in the drive for some time. Otherwise (car burglars take note!), my vintage iPod resides in the compartment between the front seats in the car, where I'm reacquainting myself with all the stuff I put on it when it was first acquired.

[Mandryka]

I have a hard drive with 4 TB of space.

That’s not true, I have three. The one which is used for playing music and two for backup, the backups stored in different secret hiding places in case mélomane burglars arrive. And I pay $60 dollars a year to Backblaze for cloud backup (which works really well ). . .

. . . before you say I’m neurotic, it is a big collection which gives me a lot of pleasure and would be very very hard to replace .

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

=

. . . before you say I’m neurotic, it is a big collection which gives me a lot of pleasure and would be very very hard to replace .

In the contrary, you're very wise. When desktop and hard drive both died, and everything was on my iPod only, I tried to extract everything from the iPod, and ended up wiping it. Thank heavens for CDs.

[mikealdren]

I also use FLAC and my current 3,500 CDs take up about 1Tb, half the space on the disks I use so there's plenty of room for expansion. I also have several copies in different places, the work of copying and tagging them was enormous and don't think I could face it again. I still have the CDs in the attic, from time to time I have to dig out CDs to rip them again where they have not copied correctly.

[reinerfan]

I do like the presence of physical discs, although I have tried streaming, magnetic storage, etc., but always come back to the good old CD, SACD or Blu/ray. I download quite a bit, but always burn to CD.
As a widower house rules are my rules, so racks of my 24,000 CDs around the house do not bother me, and it's surprising how much it saves on decorating!

[Ein Heldenleben]

I do like the presence of physical discs, although I have tried streaming, magnetic storage, etc., but always come back to the good old CD, SACD or Blu/ray. I download quite a bit, but always burn to CD.
As a widower house rules are my rules, so racks of my 24,000 CDs around the house do not bother me, and it's surprising how much it saves on decorating!

“24,000 CD’s - is that a record ? “
-No they’re CD’s ...

Amazing . Does your name mean that you share my opinion that Fritz’s performance of Mozart’s Jupiter with the CSO is one of the very finest ever?

[Dave2002]

24,000! I gave up counting at what I estimate was 6000, but 24,000! Wow!